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Dr. Arlan Andrews, Sr., is a science fiction writer whose short stories, articles, and poems have appeared in Amazing Stories, Analog, Asimov’s, Astounding Stories, Mensa Bulletin, Omni, Pulphouse, Science Fiction Age, Science Fiction Review, Stupefying Stories, and other magazines.[1]  His novelette “Flow” was a Hugo nominee in 2015[2] and it received the Jovian Award that same year[3].

In an award-winning article in Analog in 1993, “Single Stage to Infinity!”[4] he coined the phrase, “A spaceship that takes off and lands the way God and Robert Heinlein intended.” In a series of articles in 1992 in Science Fiction Review, he added the neologisms, “nanobot”, “microbot”, and “nanofacturing”.

In addition to science fiction, Arlan has published several hundred non-fiction articles and columns in another 100 venues worldwide, on subjects including advanced manufacturing, speculative technologies, ancient civilizations, Fortean phenomena, UFOs, the paranormal, and other anomalies.

While working as a Fellow in the White House Science Office in 1992-1993, Arlan founded SIGMA[5], the science fiction think tank, now comprising some 40 science fiction and game writers who provide pro bono futurism consulting to the Federal Government. SIGMA has since participated in dozens of various activities with Federal agencies[6] and once in Saudi Arabia[7]. While in D.C., Arlan also wrote the first White House endorsement of nanotechnology and of what is now called “3D printing” or additive manufacturing.[8]

Life

A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Arlan read Heinlein’s Red Planet at age 10, which changed the trajectory of his life. Inspired by science fiction, he determined to become a rocket scientist. Immediately after graduating high school, he moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he attended New Mexico State University (NMSU), working at the US Army’s White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) on the NMSU-WSMR co-op program as a missile tracking telescope operator. As an employee of Bell Telephone Laboratories at WSMR, he earned an M.S. and Sc.D. in Mechanical Engineering. Among other tasks, he worked on the SAFEGUARD anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) project and the very first ATT touchscreen terminal.

After a long career in design and management in several organizations, with assignments around the U.S. and in Japan, Singapore, and China, and as co-founder of a high-tech startups in Virtual Reality and Biotech, Arlan finally retired as Environmental Director at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. He received six patents.

Writing Career

Arlan’s first paid writing was an article in Fate Magazine in 1972. “Toward a Unified Parascience” dealt with the nature of consciousness and the afterlife, proposing a physical mechanism for both. His first paid science fiction was a poem in the January 1980 Isaac Asimov’s Magazine “Rime of the Ancient Engineer”, which has been re-published several times. After sales the next year to Analog and Omni he qualified for and joined SFWA, and has been a member ever since. With nearly 100 short publications in science fiction magazines and anthologies, his first two novels were published in 2017: Valley of the Shaman and Silicon Blood.[9]  Arlan is also the Acquisitions editor for Talisman House Press, which deals with esoteric subjects.

[1] Summary Bibliography, Arlan Andrews, www.isfdb.org

[2] http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2015-hugo-awards/

[3] http://thejovianaward.com

[4] “Single Stage to Infinity!”, Analog, June 1993 – Reader’s Choice Award for Best Article

[5] www.SigmaForum.org

[6] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/31/sci_fi_consultants_at_the_dhs/

[7] https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/socialgcf/arlan-andrews

[8] “Manufacturing – The New Competition”, Chapter in The President’s Report to Congress on Science and Technology, US Government Printing House, April 1993

[9] www.sf-encyclopedia.com – Authors:  Andrews, Arlan, Sr.